A Nigerian minister at Pentecost Baptist Church in Liverpool, United Kingdom, Dr Rev Philip Oyewale, has been caught demanding N17.4 million (£9,000) to find an undercover reporter a job in three days with ‘100 per cent’ success guaranteed.
A report by United Kingdom-based paper, Mail Online, revealed that Oyewale, in a meeting in his vestry, said he could get her Home Office sponsorship for a job in a care home in three days.
His company, Charis Recruits, had been suspended from the Home Office migrant sponsorship scheme in February last year because it was suspected of ‘supplying sponsored workers as labour’. It was said to have sponsored 376 migrants from July 2022 to February 2023 in an operation suspected of making over N1.9 billion (£1m).
And when the undercover reporter posing as a overseas student looking for full-time work approached the minister, he told her he could help her get a Certificate of Sponsorship – required for a work visa – in just three days.
The 47-year-old said after the payment he would introduce the reporter to someone who would help her and promised a ‘100 per cent’ success rate.
The work would be domiciliary care – supporting a disabled or elderly person in their own home – in Newcastle or Middlesbrough, he said. He only spoke about her suitability for the job when he asked if she had a car.
He was said to have dismissed her fears of not getting enough hours, saying, ”You will be paid. We have more than enough hours. You will work until you say you are tired.”
Mail Online said Oyewale was no longer working with the company but could not explain why his number was still on the contacts section of the website.
A watchdog warned there had been ‘widespread abuse’ of the system since early 2022 after ministers relaxed immigration rules to plug mass job vacancies. Vacancies in adult social care hit a record 164,000 in 2021/22, prompting the government to lower the barrier for such staff to be allowed to work in the UK. There was a 349 per cent rise in care worker visas to more than 89,000.
There are concerns that a large number of the workers being allowed into the country lack any skill in the field or any knowledge of English, leaving vulnerable persons in their care at risk. In some, the workers disappear and search for other jobs on the UK black market.
Nadra Ahmed, chairman of the National Care Association, said she knew of extensive abuse of the system since visa rules were relaxed.
”We’re seeing agencies sprouting up that are just bringing people in for the purpose of taking money off them,” she said.
”They’re not checking their skills or making sure they have the relevant training. In some cases workers are sleeping 14 to a room and having to pay back money they hadn’t expected.
”We have to stop a practice where vulnerable people are looking after vulnerable people. It’s exploitation with terrible consequences for the social care industry and the people that we, as a society, are supposed to be caring for.”
She said the Home Office needed to strengthen English language requirements and spend more time on follow-up visits to homes using foreign care workers.
Martin Plimmer, lead investigator at the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, said more than 100,000 sponsorship visas had been issued in the two years since rules were relaxed. He lamented that many of them arrive the country in debt since they had been charged between £10,000 and £20,000 to get Certificate of Sponsorship.
He said some are forced to work 80-hour weeks, leaving them exhausted and making it hard to do their job properly and are unable to report to the authorities for fear of losing their jobs.
